of sovereign power. That rested originally with the states; and there, I contend, it remains to-day. If it does not rest with the states where is it? I have shown that this government, being possessed only of limited powers, for specified purposes, can not be sovereign. That high power, I repeat, remains where it originally rested-in the states of this Union; and whenever it is called into action it must flow from its

pristine source.

I may, Mr. Speaker, in the attempt to make myself understood, be charged with unnecessary repetition of the same idea; but our political system is very complex and much misapprehended. In its complicity, however, I recognize the great frame-work of the liberal age in which it was constructed; for that complicity was necessary to secure liberty by the protection of every interest involved.

I come now to apply this principle of sovereignty to the Territories. At the time of the formation of the federal Constitution there were not in existenco any such municipal communities as thoso wo now term Territories. Consequently the langungo of that instrument, which confers upon Congress the authority "to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations for the territory and other property of the United States," was not intended to convey to Congress the right of legislation over the Territories as subsequently constituted. This is clear. The context itself shows that the word "territory" was palpably used in the sense of property, for the disposal of which Congress, the common agent of the states, was to make the "needful rules and regulations," such as to survey the lands and to provide for their sale. This is further shown by the stronger and more explicit language used in conferring the power of legislation over such cession as might be made by the states for the seat of government. Whence, then, is derived the power of Congress to legislate for a Territory as we now understand the term? Before I procced to answer this question of the power of municipal legislation, I should state, what necessarily follows from the views which I have already presented, that the people of a Territory possess no sovereign power. They occupy the common territory of all the states, over which the states jointly not only possess the eminent domain, but also the ultimate sovereignty. The inhabitants of a Territory possess no more sovereignty over it than if they had established their residences in the Russian empire. All the political powers that the people of a Territory possess or acquire must come from the states, either by the common grant of all the states, or by cession from their agent, the federal government, under the Constitution. Now, sir, having fixed their true relations to the states, I shall proceed to answer the inquiry, whence does Congress derive the right of legislation over the Territories? It is, in my opinion, implied in the power delegated by the states to Congress in the Constitution to admit new states into the Union upon equal footing with the original states. This right necessarily implies the right of Congress to prepare the people (or rather the inhabitants, for the term "people" technically signifies a community politically organized, and can not, in that sense, be applied to the inhabitants of a Territory) for admission into the Union as a state. The major includes the minor-that is to say, under the power to "admit," Congress possesses the right of paving the way for that act-of making the preliminary arrangements for

the important change of the political condition of a Territory. It is under that power, then, and not under the right to make "rules and regulations" for the disposal of the common territory that Congress can legislate for the Territories, or establish municipal governments therein. But, sir, this authority is limited to legislation, and does not extend to the exercise of any power properly appertaining to sovereignty, much less to the delegation of such attributes to the territorial government. The power of legislation, and that of making organic laws, are distinct things-the one may be exercised by the legislative branch of the government, the other is the exclusive attribute of the sovereign power. In the whole process, this high authority is brought into action in only one instance-on the admission of a new state. In the act of admission into the Union as a state, the people of a Territory are at once collectively invested with sovereignty. From that instant they stand as the peer of every other state. The sovereign power passes to them, not from the federal government (for that government can not hold it), but by the cession of the other states, in conformity with their constitutional compact, by which, by empowering Congress as their common agent to admit new states upon an equality with themselves, they have bound themselves to cede their joint sovereignty, until that moment retained, to their new sister.

From the principles I have laid down, Mr. Speaker, the inference clearly follows that Congress, possessing merely the power of municipal legislation to prepare the Territories for admission into the Union, has no power to exclude or abolish slavery in the Territories. Much less have the inhabitants of a Territory, possessing no inherent sovereignty, and having no political powers except those derived from Congress, this right.

A glance at the condition of the inhabitants of any portion of our common territory, before the establishment of any territorial government, may still farther tend to illustrate my views. What is the condition of the residents now upon the Gadsden purchase the inhabitants of the rich and fruitful hills and dales of Arizonia? Are they in a state of nature, like the wild savage, without a political status, without laws to restrain them, or without rights to be protectod? I think not; for I differ from my friend from South Carolina [Mr. Orr] in the opinion which he the other day advanced as to the state of a Territory. There is, sir, in my opinion, a common law, which exists in every portion of our common country, as well in the states as in the common territory, from the instant of its acquisition; and that law is the Constitution of the United States.

Mr. Orr. In speaking of the common law, I had reference to the common law of England. I stated expressly that, in my belief, the Constitution extended over the Territories.

Mr. Quitman. I then understood the gentleman to take the ground that no law for the protection of property existed in any of the Territories until made by the territorial Legislature. I think that I now comprehend his idea better. I maintain, in the first place, that the inhabitants of such portions of our territory have all the rights, privileges, and immunities provided or reserved in the Constitution. Furthermore, every citizen of any of the states, from whatever section of the country he goes, taking up his residence on the common terri

tory of the states, carries with him all the essential rights which he possessed in his own state. The states being joint proprietors and co-sovereigns, the citizen of each state stands, as it were, upon the soil of his own state, as much so as if he stood upon the deck of an American vessel on the high seas. The general principles of law that are common to all the states, founded on usage and general conformity, prevail in and constitute the common law of the Territory. There may bo no judicial organization to enforce that law, but it has its vitality, and exists; and, upon the establishment of judicial tribunals, would be recognized and acted upon without positive legislation on the subject of these rights. Prominent among these rights is that of property recognized by any of the states. When that right, as in the case of slaves, is recognized by the organic law of nearly one half of the states in the Union, and at least in one instance acknowledged by the Constitution of the United States, it not only exists and is available in the common territory of the states before the establishment of civil government there, but is far beyond the reach of both the federal and territorial governments when found on the common possessions of the states. There is but one power that can destroy my right to my slave, and that is the state in which I hold him, or to which I voluntarily carry him. If the federal government does not possess the right, it is absurd to say that one of its departments has

it.

While I concede to that high tribunal, the Supreme Court of the United States, the right to determine finally all cases of law and equity which come within its jurisdiction, I deny its authority to setthe questions which involve the political rights of the states. Tho Constitution is the work of the states, and they must construe it for themselves upon all questions affecting their rights. Theso would

cease to be rights, if subject to the antagonistic power against which they were limited. It is absurd to suppose that the states, in the formation of the Constitution, jealous of their great essential political rights, would have left them at the mercy of that very power against the encroachment of which they were erecting a barrier. It is yet more absurd to suppose that they would have left them, by construction, to one department of the government, and that department, both from its mode of appointment and its tenure of office, the least responsible to the people.

I approve, Mr. Speaker, the principles of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. I claim, under it, and under the Constitution, the right to carry my slave into either of those Territories. I know that this right, if a caso can be made on it, may be the subject of the examination and decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and that that decision, in any given case, would be final. I would abide by it, as a settlement of the case decided; but I am not willing to let it go to the world that I would respect the precedent, or that I would surrender the principle that the assertion of such essential rights belongs exclusively to the states aggrieved by their violation. The Supreme Court, in my opinion, possesses no jurisdiction to decido finally upon the political rights of the states. I am still old-fashioned enough to stand squarely upon the doctrines of the Virginia and Kentucky rcsolutions of 1798-'99.

At last, Mr. Speaker, this whole subject resolves itself into several great questions connected with the theory of our political system. Is this essentially a national government, or is it a union of sovereign states?

Does the sovereignty or supreme power reside in the central government, or the mass of the people of our country as a nation, one and indivisible? or does it yet repose in the sovereign states?

The solution of these great questions has, at various periods of our political history, occupied the attention of the best statesmen of the country. The radical principles involved in them divided the gigantic intellects of Calhoun and Webster. Almost all the differences of opinion that exist as to the action of the federal government on the practical issues which spring up from day to day, grow out of the various solutions of these questions. Therefore they are, indeed, worthy of repeated discussion.

I had, Mr. Speaker, intended to notice some of the remarks made by the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Marshall] on the subject of "squatter sovereignty," but I find that my hour has expired. Whatever more I may have wished to say in this connection, I must, perforce, postpone the accomplishment of my wishes until some farther

occasion.

II.

SPEECH OF JOHN A. QUITMAN, OF MISSISSIPPI, ON THE SUBJECT OF THE NEUTRALITY LAWS: DELIVERED IN COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE HOUSE ON THE STATE OF THE UNION, APRIL 29TH, 1856. MR. CHAIRMAN,-Since the opening of this session of Congress, the public mind has been almost exclusively absorbed by the slavery question—that great issue which distracts the entire country, and seems to menace with danger the integrity of the Union. Had it not been for the excitement produced by that paramount question, a high sense of duty would have impelled me, during even the first week of this session, to present to the consideration of the House, and of the country, a matter of deep and permanent interest to both. As I shall be necessarily absent for several weeks, I will avail myself of this opportunity, so kindly furnished by my friend from Florida [Mr. Maxwell], to present my views on the subject of certain laws which now encumber our statute-book; those laws which seek to enforce our supposed neutral obligations to other nations; those laws which, though acquiesced in for some years, are, in my opinion, injurious to the best interests of our country, and fatal to its hopes of future development. The peculiar condition of many neighboring states and colonics, and the influence which their condition must exercise upon our own prosperity, render it highly important at the present time that we should review this branch of our national policy. A radical change is required. For the purpose of effecting this, I yesterday gave notice that I would introduce a bill to repeal the objectionable provisions of the existing neutrality law. This bill proposes to repeal the first, second, third, fifth, sixth, eighth, tenth, and cleventh sections of "An act in addi

tion to the act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States, and to repeal the acts therein mentioned," approved April 20th, 1818. I frankly admit on the threshold that my bill contemplates an entire alteration of policy; it advocates a complete abandonment of that extraordinary system of legislative restriction by which the free action and enterprising spirit of our people are crippled, and to which it is a matter of surprise that they have so long submitted. But, Mr. Chairman, we live in an age of progress. Changes are constantly going on around us; and to them we must adapt our course. It is not to the past alone that we must look to learn our present duties or our future obligations. The conduct of other nations, the aspect of adjacent states, the circumstances of cach teeming hour-all these must be taken into consideration. That which might, twenty years since, have been morally and politically right, may now be not only morally wrong, but politically suicidal. When one set of legislators may, by one act, bind down immutably the energics of unborn millions, liberty ceases to exist.

Our government, in its theory, is purely representative. It should, in reality, be the reflex of public sentiment; but it too often lags behind the march of opinion, and endeavors to control and direct that power, from which it should properly take its color, as it docs always take its being. But when the full tide of popular principle is aroused, the government must ultimately be carried with it.

While I believe that public opinion demands the change of policy which I propose by this bill, I still approach the argument with diffidence, doubting whether the short space of time allowed me will suffice to render the conclusions as clearly forcible to the minds of others as they are to my own. But, Mr. Chairman, I act with a firm reliance upon the strong American intellect, and with a conviction that my proposition is founded on reason, justice, and sound policy.

The law of nations," so called, does not profess to establish fixed and invariable rules, applicable to all cases. Its object is to define the moral relations that mutually exist between independent states, and the character of those relations is necessarily modified by the course of circumstances. To understand the obligations that we owe both to ourselves and to other nations, we must first survey the position of the political communities around us. A distant and cursory glance is all

that I can now bestow upon this instructive picture.

Of Canada, and the vast British possessions that skirt our northern frontier, I will not speak. Under the mild rule to which they are now subjected by the mother government, the people of those colonies wear, the appearance of content; and it may be that they are preparing, quietly and without violence, to take their place at the proper time in the family of separate nations.

Turning to Mexico, our neighbor on the south and west, we shall find her in a state of disintegration. Since 1820, when her mixed population banished the Spanish tyrants, she has been rapidly sinking in every moral and physical element; and, during the last eight years, she has preserved a state of sickly existence by selling portions of her territory to the United States. This method alone has sufficed to prop the tottering foundations of her nationality; and this is, indeed, a sign that she is rapidly hastening to her final dissolution. The whole